Maulana Hafiz Sher Mohammad

(Author, scholar, missionary of
Islam and the Ahmadiyya Movement)

Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at Islam
Lahore Inc., U.S.A.

First Printed Edition, 1995.
First HTML Edition on WWW (with corrections), December 1998; reorganised:
December 1999.

Dr. Sir Muhammad Iqbal is revered as one of the
greatest poets, intellectuals and philosophers to arise in the history
of Islam. He had met Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, and wrote of him in
1900 as “probably the profoundest theologian among
modern Indian Muslims”. In 1910 Iqbal described the Ahmadiyya
community as “a true model of Islamic life”.
Later in 1932 he wrote of members of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement
as “Muslims who have a sense of honour”.

Yet today we find the opponents of the Ahmadiyya Movement publishing
on a vast, world-wide scale, statements of Iqbal made in the last
four years of his life, denouncing and rejecting this Movement,
its Founder, and its work. How and why did this extraordinary change
in Iqbal’s public stance come about?

In this well-researched booklet, Hafiz Sher Mohammad examines the
whole history of Iqbal’s relationship with the Ahmadiyya Movement,
and traces the factors which influenced his view of it, both in
the earlier years and near the end of his life.

About the author

Hafiz Sher Mohammad (d. 1990) served the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at
Islam Lahore as missionary since his youth, first within Pakistan
and later in several other countries. He was one of the Movement’s
greatest scholars and an un equalled authority on the writings and
claims of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. He lectured and wrote extensively,
in the Urdu language, on all aspects of Islam and the Ahmadiyya Movement.

His most magnificent achievement was his comprehensive presentation,
in two civil court cases in Cape Town (South Africa) during the
1980s, of the beliefs of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, showing the
Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement to be a great servant of Islam
and a true Muslim. Hafiz Sher Mohammad triumphed single-handedly
against a formidable opposition of far greater numbers and resources,
and his expert testimony was entirely accepted by the courts. It
was a historic victory of the values of tolerance and reason over
bigotry and blind- following.